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India iron ore exports seen down by upto 30pct – FIMI

India's iron ore exports for the current fiscal may see a 30% decline over previous year's 117 million tonnes hurt by the ban imposed by the Karnataka Government to check illegal mining and a slowing demand from China.

Mr Siddharth Rungta president of Federation of Indian Mineral Industries said that iron ore exports in 2010/11 are likely to fall 25% to 30% from 117.37 million tonnes in the year to March 2010.

Mr Rungta also said that the iron ore production could see a 22% decline to 175 million tonnes this year from 226 million tonnes in the previous year.

He said that "Bulk of the shortfall would be due to the Karnataka ban."

But Mr Rungta added that the slowing demand from China would also contribute to the decline by saying that “The demand from China has softened in the past few weeks.”

In the April-July period, iron ore exports were marginally up 4.6% to 32.86 million tonnes as against 31.39 million tonnes in the corresponding period last year. However, from July the exports have seen a downward trend. In July, the exports were down 28% to 4.74 million tonnes as against 6.55 million tonnes in July last year.

Source : Reuters and BL